Ben Taylor @VoxDei@social.cleverlibre.org

@jbond @fencoul

I’m a frickin genius.

Context: my kid is mildly allergic to citric acid and citric fruit. Brings out eczema. And citric acid is in SO many things. And it’s painful checking ingredients lists for it.

This morning I wondered: can my phone OCR the ingredients list and check it?

My first thought was to make a little web app. But there doesn’t seem to be a OCR in web browsers yet.

But I KNOW my phone can get text from images.

Then…

Apple Shortcuts!!!

CHECK THIS OUT!!!

Just want to remind everyone, science is real, science is not magic. Scientists and engineers are not wizards they work hard to figure out how the universe works.

After two days of rain it was nice to see sunrise this morning. Taken from Glastonbury Tor.
#glastonbury #glastonburytor #somerset #sunrise #sunrisephotography #landscapephotography #landscape

Came across this on Twitter yesterday. It seems to sum thongs up nicely...

Since Fandom apparently intends to remove text walkthroughs from GameFAQs (which Fandom now owns), a tip of the hat to Reddit user prograc, who scraped all of GameFAQs up through March 23, 2020; the full archive is available here: https://archive.org/details/Gamespot_Gamefaqs_TXTs

Sorry, but I really got a kick out of this!

Disabling copy/paste into passwords fields is a Red Flag™ that tells me your Product Owner doesn't understand security.

It leads me to wonder what other aspects of security they've fucked up.

I wish more people did these. It's fun to learn odd little things:

First job. - Stop
Current job - Sending
Dream Job - Your
Favorite food- Potential
Favorite dog - Passwords
Favorite footwear- Or
Favorite Candy bar - Memorable
Favorite Ice Cream - Data
Your Vehicle colour - To
Favorite Holiday - People
Night owl/earlybird - Who
Favorite day - Collect
Tattoos - This
Favorite colour- For
Do you like vegetables - Social
Do you wear glasses - Engineering.

I saw this many years ago and unfortunately it is still true today. Our (IT) industry did not really progress in 30 years

#musclememory is a funny thing.

I frequently drop into the SSH command line using the ~C sequence (for adding forwarded ports, killing dead connections, etc.). 90% of the time, I just type the sequence with no mental recognition of what I'm typing.

Then 10% of the time, my muscle memory fails, and I CANNOT REMEMBER THE SEQUENCE and have to search it because my muscles lost it, and my brain forgot it—a very similar feeling to forgetting a close friend's name.

Anyone else?

I'm sticking with a Dartmoor theme for today. These granite stepping stones are on the East Dart River. They are a bit slippery when wet, but usually one of the easier river crossings on the Moor.

Just step this way...

#Photography #River #SteppingStones #Dartmoor #Devon #Psychogeography

"If someone tried to take control of your body and make you a slave, you would fight for freedom. Yet how easily you hand over your mind to anyone who insults you. When you dwell on their words and let them dominate your thoughts, you make them your master."

-Epictetus

@gothick @pandion This is probably far closer to the truth than you might think. Here is a true story:

This was back in the mid 1980’s, the early days of expert systems, before they had that name. At my institution (gov), if you wanted a computer you had to write, submit and get approval of an Automated Data Processing (ADP) plan before you could buy it. The plans were complicated with many rules, cases, etc., and consumed tremendous amount of time to prepare and review, often with many iterations.

Fresh out of grad school, I could not let this stand. A couple of us worked for about a month and created an expert system to write perfect ADP plans. The system was built in HyperCard! It asked users a series of necessary and sufficient questions and filled in the ADP Office’s template plan. It was hugely popular and people made plans and finally started ordering the computers they wanted. Success! But wait, it gets better.

About two months later, I got a call from the ADP Office asking for help. They were being inundated with ADP plans and couldn’t review them in a timely way (as if they ever did). Could I write them a program to help review the plans? I was astonished that they were clueless about my ADP-Writer program, and I did not enlighten them.

It was trivial (but I took plenty of time) to create ADP-Reader. So ADP-Reader was “reading” plans created by ADP-Writer! Users were happy, the ADP Office was happy, and I was a hero.

After six months or so of this, I couldn’t let the charade continue. I pulled back the curtain and … it wasn’t fast, but the ADP Office was defunded and ADP plan requirements were eliminated.

#AI #Hype #ExpertSystems

We don't talk enough about how often ChatGPT just makes shit up. It's trying to convince me there's an Isaac Asimov story I've never read called "Susan Calvin and the Missing Lover," published in Jan 1957 in Amazing Science Fiction. There are zero references to this anywhere on the entire internet. I feel so gaslit right now!

A lovely bit of colour in the sky today at sunrise. Taken from Glastonbury Tor.
#glastonbury #GlastonburyTor #Somerset #sunrisephotography #landscapephotography

"The fundamental issue among knowledgeable animal behaviorists is that anthropomorphization with animals is generally the appropriate tactic unless you have reason to doubt it. Because there is continuity between animals and us rather than discontinuity. The idea that the anthropomorphization of animals is inappropriate is something derived from 1950s behaviorism."
– Dr. Jorden B. Peterson

#dog #dogs #dogsofmastodon #dogtraining #dogtrainer #SarahGillCDT #happydogtraining #RalfWeberCDT

To all the folks out there requesting content warnings on posts relating to politics:

I'm sorry you're disturbed by these posts, or don't think its funny, or whatever.

Understand that these warnings are not required where we are posting and retooting, and so it's not top of mind to be considerate in this way.

But here is another thing to consider:

The problem is *so fucking central* to so many people's existence that I, personally, believe it should be impossible to ignore, and the sooner the better, because if it is successfully ignored for long enough, we'll reach a point where it is impossible for anyone to ignore, and we'll never have the liberty to ignore it again.

Wake the fuck up.